Title	Bleak House? Rich and Poor in Victorian England
Date	Sat 24 Jun
Event	Day School Summer
Time	10:30am - 4:30pm
Venue	Canterbury Campus
Contact	artsandculture@canterbury.ac.uk or Tel: 01227 922994
Price	Standard Adult - £36.00

Tutor: Gill Draper | Canterbury campus In recent years TV serialisations in particular have brought home the plight of the poor in the century-and-a-half before the introduction of pensions in 1908 and national insurance in 1911. Alongside these portrayals of the poor life derived from literature, there has been a huge growth in the availability of materials which allow us to investigate aspects of historical poverty for ourselves. These include re-issues of classic works such as Street Life in London, with interviews, articles and photographs from 1876-77, and R. Seebohm Rowntree’s A Study of Town Life, from which we will discuss extracts. In response to works like this, charities such as the Waifs and Strays Society were set up, to save children from what was seen as a future life of crime and we will investigate their nature. Meanwhile towns and cities expanded alongside the growth in population, and we will consider the housing available for rich and for poor, and the concept and practice of philanthropy (or not) by some employers. We will also examine the deep agricultural poverty which was one of the factors behind the New Poor Law of 1834, looking at an example of the establishment of one of the enormous Union workhouses in Sussex from contemporary letters, reports, memoranda and maps. Here we can learn about the lives of the inmates and the workers, the governor and his wife, the schoolteacher, nurse and porter, as well as exploring the attitudes of the wealthy ratepayers who funded poor relief.

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